October 14, 2014

We’re excited to announce the 2015 releases of AutoCAD for Mac and AutoCAD LT for Mac!

This release makes it easier than ever for users to create drawings and designs on the platform of their choice without sacrificing important functionality that is key to everyday design workflows. Users can also share their work with colleagues that are using Windows versions of the software like never before.

Key new enhancements include:

· Dynamic Blocks. Mac users gain the ability to create and edit Dynamic Blocks—a capability previously limited to Windows users. This feature enables them to insert one block that can change shape, size, or configuration instead of inserting several static blocks.

· Layer States. Mac users can also now save their layer settings as Layer States, which store information like color, linetype, and information about whether a layer is turned off, frozen, or locked. Prior to the 2015 releases, Mac users were unable to view any of the layer states information their Windows colleagues had embedded within a drawing.

· Data Linking. Users who need to link a table to data in a Microsoft Excel file can use the new Data Linking feature, and their table will automatically update as external changes are made. This feature is especially helpful when managing large amounts of information about things like materials or fixtures.

· Quick Select. The Quick Select tool allows users to quickly select objects based on query criteria, enabling users to easily select exactly what they need in their drawing. The Quick Select tool also includes a “preview” option so that users can see what they’re about to select before they commit to the selection.

We’ve also added a ton of smaller enhancements including a toggle for model/paper space, nested-object copy (NCOPY), and lots of cool enhancements to the drawing window.

Additional details about the software, including pricing and availability, are available here.

April 26, 2012

Have you ever counted how many ways there are to access commands in AutoCAD? I count seven: the ribbon, grips, right-click menus, the command line, tool palettes, menus, and toolbars. (Did I miss any?)

Of all those methods, the command line has been around the longest, so it’s probably the most deserving of an update.

This new & improved version now floats transparently in your drawing window, freeing up a few extra pixels of real estate.

But just because you only see one line now, that doesn’t mean that’s all you get. As soon as you start entering commands, a scrolling history appears above the command line. And this is where it really gets interesting. You won’t believe the number of new things there are to talk about just in this screenshot.

At the very left are the drag bar and the close button. Reposition the bar anywhere on your screen, or even dock it back at the bottom where it used to be.

Next up is the wrench icon for Settings, where you can control the AutoComplete display, the Lines of Prompt History (more on that in a second), the Transparency, or go to the Options dialog.

The next icon—the small square actually in the command prompt—brings up your most recent commands.

Let’s go back to the command-in-progress command line:

Notice that there’s now an icon and the command name itself displayed in the command line, to help you keep track of what you’re doing.

Also, the capital letters that indicate command options are now blue, and what’s more, they’re clickable, so you can activate them either by typing or with the mouse. (Does that count as an 8th way of accessing commands?)

Back to the prompt history. By default, you get 3 lines at a time, and they fade away after a few seconds of inactivity, helping to keep your screen clear. If you want to see more, you can press F2 or click the arrow at the far right of the command line. And if you want the full text window as in previous releases, that’s now Ctrl+F2.

October 21, 2008

If you’re using AutoCAD 2009, you’ve probably noticed the tooltips that appear when you pass the cursor over an object. These are called rollover tooltips and they’re completely customizable!

You can control their display (on or off) with an option on the Display tab of the Options dialog box.

You can further customize the rollover tooltips by specifying which information you want to display, based on object type. This is the same process you would use to customize the Quick Properties.

In the CUI dialog box, you’ll notice a Rollover Tooltips node right below the Quick Properties node. If you select Rollover Tooltips, the right side of the CUI dialog box will display two panels. The first panel displays a list of common object types for which you might want to customize the rollover tooltips. The second panel displays the general properties that are available for all object types. You can add or remove general properties to quickly change the default tooltip properties that are displayed for every object, regardless of object type.

If you want to customize the rollover tooltips for specific object types, you can select the object in the first panel. If the object is not listed there, select the Edit Object Type List button at the top of the Panel.

Selecting that button displays a list of all available object types. The objects you select in this list determines which ones are displayed in the first panel of the CUI dialog box and, therefore, available for you to customize.

When you select one of these object types in the first panel of the CUI dialog box, all the available properties for that particular object type are displayed in the second panel. You can then select which properties you want to display in the rollover tooltip.

September 12, 2008

There are many ways to maximize your drawing area while maintaining easy access to the many AutoCAD tools. I’ve already written about these options but in a recent Webcast for our AutoCAD users in Australia, I promised to repost the links.

January 24, 2008

If you’ve ever customized the AutoCAD user interface using the Customize User Interface dialog box, you’ve probably experienced the ultrafast scrolling list, which makes it tough to drag and drop from the command list onto a UI element. For example, try expanding the Modify toolbar node in the Customizations in All CUI Files pane and then drag the Rename command from the command list up to the Modify toolbar node. As soon as your cursor passes from the Command List pane to the Customizations in All CUI Files pane, the pane automatically begins scrolling to the bottom of the list. You have to push the cursor above the top of the Customizations in All CUI Files pane to make it scroll back up.

Fortunately there are some tricks to make this task a little easier. You can use the right-click menu to Copy the command from the Command list and Paste it under the Modify node. Or, if you *really* want to drag and drop, you can “sneak up” on the toolbar (or other UI element) by approaching it from the side.

July 06, 2007

Each release of AutoCAD offers many subtle improvements that may not create all the hype of bigger features, but will save you time none the less! For example, in AutoCAD 2008, in-place editing enables you to rename a layout by double-clicking on the layout tab. You can also drag and drop layouts to reorder them. Use familiar tools (Ctrl and Shift) to select multiple layouts and then drag them to their new location. If you press Ctrl as you drag and drop the layouts, AutoCAD will create copies or the layouts rather than moving them.

July 04, 2007

I received several follow-up emails in response to one of my recent posts about palette sensitivity. Thanks to Ray and Jimmy for suggesting Jimmy's freeware utility on JTB World that enables you to adjust the palette sensitivity without manually editing the XML files.

June 19, 2007

Today's good question comes from Bill. He asked this question during my AutoCAD Tips & Tricks session in Calgary and, although I didn't know the answer, I knew someone that did!

Bill asked if you can control the sensitivity of Auto-hide for palettes. He wanted the palettes to be less sensitive when hidden so he wouldn't accidentally activate the wrong one, and more sensitive when open so they would disappear immediately.

This is just one of the many "wicked cool" tricks you can learn from Matt Murphy's Tool Palettes class at CAD Camp or Autodesk University.

The following comes from Matt Murphy (Top Autodesk University 2006 Speaker):

The timer settings for rollup, rollout, the new "roll out then rollup" (called "holdopen") are stored in the fixed profile XML file. By default these settings are not specified. You can add these settings to the file by editing it to provide non-default values for each of these behaviors.

To make the changes first back up the "FixedProfile.aws" file in your support/Profiles directory and then edit it using any text editor. I use Windows Notepad. Remember there is a distinctive fixed profile based on user login name of your Windows operating system.

When you open the file it will be hard to read because it is not well formatted, but the changes to make are near the top of the file.

Search for the word "<AcApData>" (should be right at the top).

Immediately after this string paste in the following:<PaletteRolloutInfo PaletteRolloutDelay="100"/><PaletteRollupInfo PaletteRollupDelay="800" PaletteHoldopenDelay="4000"/>Carriage returns and additional white space in this file is ok.

Note: Each of the values is specified in milliseconds. In the sample above the values provided are the same as the defaults (1/10th second rollout delay. So the above string is 8/10th second rollup delay, 4 second holdopen delay). So to change the holdopen delay to 5 seconds use:<PaletteRollupInfo PaletteRollupDelay="800" PaletteHoldopenDelay="5000"/>

You will need to restart AutoCAD for these changes to take effect. These changes are global and affect all palettes.

Thanks to Bill for the great question and to Matt for the valuable response!

Refering to the ability to hide the Command window, Steve Goodmansen wrote: “Every user I've asked to give it a try has loved it and never gone back to having a command line.” He pointed out that “your Command Line is only an F2 away".

Just in case you are not familiar with Function key F2, it opens the AutoCAD Text Window, which is like a really big Command line! It displays everything that the command line does *and* you can scroll back to view, copy and paste previous command line input. The AutoCAD Text Window is also a great resource for learning/training because you (or the instructor) can scroll back through previous operations to see where you went wrong!

By the way, Steve also pointed out that the AutoCAD Text Window “is especially helpful when the user has 2 monitors”. You can display the AutoCAD drawing window on one monitor and the text window on the other. Talk about maximizing your workspace!!!

February 08, 2007

In my previous post, I described how you can gain drawing space by turning off the scrollbars. This works great for reclaiming the vertical ribbon of space that was used by the vertical scroll bar. However, the horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of the display is simply replaced by more space for layout tabs. This additional space for layout tabs can be helpful if the drawing contains many layout tabs and you switch between them frequently. However, if your drawing only has a few layout tabs, much of that space is wasted.

Beginning in AutoCAD 2007, you can choose to display the Layout and Model tabs as buttons on the Status Bar rather than tabs. Simply right-click over any Layout or Model tab and choose Hide Layout and Model tabs.

The horizontal ribbon that was previously used by the Layout and Model tabs is reallocated as drawing space and new Layout and Model buttons are automatically added to the status bar! Even if your drawing contains many layouts, you might find them easier to access using the status bar buttons because a flyout menu enables you to view and select layouts without having to scroll across a long ribbon of layout tabs!

You can easily change your display back from status bar buttons to tabs by right-clicking over the Layout or Model buttons and selecting Display Layout and Model Tabs.